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My figs/bananas/fish were featured on the 10 o'clock news :)

On Monday I got an email from a meteorologist/science reporter from the NBC affiliate out of Topeka saying that he'd heard about my project and wanted to come do a story about it.  So he came out that afternoon and the story was featured on the 10 o'clock news that night: http://kansasfirstnews.com/2014/07/30/tropical-fruit-and-fish-farm-in-kansas/

A few notes:

1) the "50 cents a day" figure was in regard to my electricity cost;

2) I'm not a banana/fig farmer, I'm a fish farmer who also grows some bananas and figs;

3) the 'those' in "put 20 of those around town" was in regard to the bigger (10-acre) intensive off-grid greenhouse food production complexes I want to build;

4) it is unwise to gorge at an all-u-can-eat Chinese buffet right before a TV interview.

I was originally featured in a Manhattan Mercury article several weeks ago ( http://themercury.com/articles/looking-to-help-his-father-man-farms-bananas-tilapia-in-kansas ) and the publicity has kind of snowballed from there.  I've since been featured in nearby Wamego's local paper (  http://thedailyunion.epaperflip.com/The-Smoke-Signal/2014-07-16/#?page=14 - enlarge by clicking on story, then using +/- tool near bottom right of page; or click 'download pdf' button) and am the cover story in this week's Grass & Grain ( http://www.grassandgrain.com/DocumentCenter/View/2979 ). 

I have links to all these stories on my GreenFin Gardens website at http://www.greenfingardens.com/p/in-news.html for future reference.  There are a number of factual mistakes in them, but that's pretty understandable since there's so much information for the reporters to try to absorb and keep straight, and since they don't let me proofread their stories.

The last few weeks have been pretty interesting.  Hope this post doesn't come across as bragging or rub anyone the wrong way, I was just excited and wanted to share my 15 minutes of fame with my fellow fig lovers. 
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Super cool! Congratulations!

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Congratulations!  The word needs to spread  :)
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Originally Posted by Savage270
Super cool! Congratulations!

Thanks :)
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Congratulations! !!
Very nice!
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Originally Posted by rcantor
Congratulations!  The word needs to spread  :)

Thanks!  And my little figs need to grow :)

I'd trade all these news stories for daily fig hauls like what Jon, FMD, snaglpus, and all the other F4F master figgers get.  The trickle of 1 or 2 figs a week from my 1st year plants just isn't cutting it, lol.  Next year...
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Their plants are at least 3 years old and they have 3 zones on you.  Your greenhouse *may* give you zone parity (but probably not because your soil will be cooler) but you don't have hundreds of plants in there.  Don't set your expectations too high.  :)
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Awesome work, James! You're just turning into the local celebrity.  Better be careful.  Soon you'll be signing autographs and doing cameos in blockbuster movies! LOL!
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Great news. Congratulations.

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I had a hard time watching it.  We are too far from the DSL tower (and no fiber optic company is brave enough to run cable up this hill), so any video stops and starts, but I endured!  Very cool!  Hubby is diabetic and I told him we should get one of them thar tilapia farms, but after the eye rolling was finished, I put Talapia on my grocery list.  I love cooking it in lime juice for ceviche!

Hope they do a follow up in a few years and you can actually feed them some figs!

Good luck with all of it!

Suzi
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Super awesome!
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Greenfig,
do you have any figs in-ground, not in the green house?
I can see the stories with my current situation
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Originally Posted by greg88
do you have any figs in-ground, not in the green house?

Yes.

I've got an LSU Purple that I set outside last year.  It was actually originally a green shoot that I broke off my 1st year LSU Purple late last summer and stuck in the gravel in my aquaponics system to see if it would root.  It did, but it was in my way, so I pulled it up and planted it outside after it had been rooting/growing for a month or two.  I knew it wasn't hardy in my zone, so I dug a 2' deep hole and planted it at the bottom of the hole.  As it grew last fall, I filled the dirt in around it.  This past winter we had 3 separate cold spells where the temps got down to -10F for 7-10 days each time, but the plant survived and erupted out of the ground this spring.  Unfortunately, it was a tissue culture plant, so it isn't fruiting from the ground up the way that all my other fig trees do (which were started from cuttings of fruiting wood).

So this year I planted 15 more varieties outside (all of which were started as cuttings this past winter).  They're all starting to take off and do well, but since they'll have to regenerate from the ground up each spring, I don't yet know which ones will/won't eventually become worthwhile producers.  Early ripeners will probably do well, late ripeners probably won't.  We'll see.  The only one with fruit right now is Salce, with 2 medium-sized figs.  I'll post some pics of their progress soon.
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This is so cool!

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very interesting.
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  • JD

Congratulations! I really like what you are doing and have done. Inspirational to be off the grid like that.
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James, It's great to produce your own protien like that. I wonder, how much does it costs to produce a pound of tilapia? If you could add an aquaponics system to that, you could really increase your food output, and clean and oxygenate the fish water. I enjoyed seeing that, hope you'll be eating plenty of bananas and figs soon.

I was interviewed by a local tv station about harvesting wild pawpaws, the reporter got a number of the facts I shared wrong, and I wished I could have cleared that up. Most people probably didn't notice though.

Mike in Hanover, VA
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Gratz!
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Originally Posted by MGorski
James, It's great to produce your own protien like that. I wonder, how much does it costs to produce a pound of tilapia? If you could add an aquaponics system to that, you could really increase your food output, and clean and oxygenate the fish water. I enjoyed seeing that, hope you'll be eating plenty of bananas and figs soon.

Hi Mike, thanks for the nice comments.  I am indeed doing aquaponics, it's the heart of my operation.  Here's a short overview of my main aquaponics system: http://www.greenfingardens.com/p/aquaponics-tunnel.html

I've eaten 3 bunches of bananas this summer, and I should have a fairly steady supply this fall.  It's fun being able to walk out to the garden and pick yellowing fingers right off the 'tree'.

I am primarily a fish hatchery, not a fish grow-out operation, so I couldn't tell you with any precision what my cost-per-pound of tilapia would be if I were trying to minimize it. 

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Originally Posted by MGorski
I was interviewed by a local tv station about harvesting wild pawpaws

That's cool that you harvest wild pawpaws, I've never had one.  I hear they're pretty good, though, and that they do well in my zone.
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Hi Greenfin,
Bananas, those look so tropical for me as a Zone sevener.
I'm jealous! But your figtrees have still a long way to grow to catch up with mine :) . One can't have it all :) .
Bizarre that your bananas are so big but your figtrees not !
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Originally Posted by jdsfrance
Hi Greenfin,
Bananas, those look so tropical for me as a Zone sevener.
I'm jealous! But your figtrees have still a long way to grow to catch up with mine :) . One can't have it all :) .
Bizarre that your bananas are so big but your figtrees not !

Thanks for the nice comments.  I always enjoy reading your posts (just like I enjoy reading virtually everyone's posts here--this is just a great forum imo).

The banana mats are a couple years old, but those fig trees you see were started from cuttings this winter.  Some of the duplicates I've left in cups as an attempt to keep them small and to restrict their roots in the hopes of getting them to fruit ASAP (which worked).  The ones I've planted in-ground in the greenhouse have grown much faster; for instance, an MBVS is already 5' tall and about 4' in diameter, with many nice trunks/branches and about 10 fruit on it right now.

The figs that I started last year, as tiny tc plants, grew to be monstrously big in a little over a year: 10' wide by 7' tall by 6' deep...and that was even with me transplanting them multiple times and pinching/pruning them back several times (since I had to keep them from hitting the 7.5' roof).  I removed them all and burned them, though, since I want my fig trees to fruit from the ground up and at a young age.  As Harvey posted from his interview with the fig breeder, tc's notoriously don't start fruiting until they get very big (and even then it can take years), and I have limited space.  I didn't want to waste my time and space on tc's, so I got rid of them and replaced them this year with cuttings of fruiting wood.  I am very happy that I made the change, the results have been terrific.

Next year at this time, when these fig trees will be 15-18 months old, they'll be monsters just like my tc's were (10' x 7' x 6')...but they'll be loaded with fruit, unlike those barren tc's.
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Originally Posted by DesertDance
I put Talapia on my grocery list. 
I love cooking it in lime juice for ceviche!


Tilapia is a FRESH WATER fish.
You DO NOT want to use fresh water fish for sushi or ceviche,
you will get parasites and tape worms that way.

Fresh water fish are rarely used in sushi,
and when consumed, as in the case of Salmon,
the meat is frozen for a period of at least 7 days.

Marinating in lime or citrus  does NOT kill the parasites either.

 

 
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Congrats! Bet your plants love the the water from your fish pool!
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Nice Job! I could not open all the links, but could read a bit about what you are doing! Be careful with those reporters! When I had a little shop (making and selling kids' clothing), they appear from everywhere trying to write up and then, follow by their ongoing annoyance to make me buy ads in their papers and the ongoing lookyloos that would not buy anything and would not let me work. I finally had to give it up... I hope that won't happen to you.  I want to find another computer so I can watch the videos.  Again, keep up the good work.
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Figs don't like humidity so a humid greenhouse is not ideal. Humidity fosters fruit rots and watery fruit. I keep the humidity of my greenhouse as low as possible. Figs are native to climates where it doesn't rain all summer and summer humidity is low. Humid greenhouses are better suited to tropical fruits like banana. But NE winters aren't conducive to many tropical fruits because it's too cold. That delays maturity, lowers yield, and often produces inferior tasting fruit.
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